Cardiff Hilton Hotel is utterly delightful
Richard McComb enjoys the presidential life – in Cardiff.
When it was suggested that I might like to go to Cardiff, I politely suggested that I wouldn’t like to.
I couldn’t imagine there was much worth seeing, still less to stay in. I mean, it’s Cardiff. It’s grim. Isn’t it? Coal dust and rugbyists. There would be chips to eat, obviously, and deep fried pizza.
And then I found myself sitting in the sun on a summer’s day having lunch on Cardiff Bay, just round the corner from the wonderful Wales Millennium Centre, home to the Welsh National Opera. It wasn’t a great lunch but it was all right. Actually it was pizza, but it hadn’t been saturated.
But even if it had been, it could not possibly have soured my trip to Cardiff. Not even Visit Cardiff could do that, despite doing its best to be totally unhelpful. Emails and phone calls to the tourism bods fell on deaf ears.
Maybe something got lost in translation. After all, the phrase “would you like some publicity in one of the country’s most influential regional newspapers” can be ambiguous.
Still, there were no such mix-ups with the Hilton Cardiff, which is slap bang in the middle of the city near the castle, five minutes in a taxi from the station. It may be part of a mega-hospitality brand but I have to say the service at all levels was fantastic, from the chap sweeping up the front of the building to the reception staff and the restaurant waiters.
I couldn’t have been made to feel more welcome. Within a few minutes of checking in, all my preconceptions about chippy Cardiff were blown away. And that takes some doing. The Australian cricket team has stayed at the Hilton in the past and it is not hard to see why they were bowled over with the location and facilities of the Cardiff hotel.
